


Freak Flag High

by TheFierceBeast



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Are you sensing a theme here?, Banter, Daydreaming, First Kiss, Gordlock - Freeform, Gotham is for lovers, Hair, Hair Kink, Hair Washing, Hair-pulling, Long Hair, M/M, Scent Kink, Scents & Smells, Sexual Tension, UST, Unresolved Sexual Tension, hair porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-28
Updated: 2018-09-28
Packaged: 2019-07-18 16:36:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16122515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFierceBeast/pseuds/TheFierceBeast
Summary: Jim wonders why he finds Harvey’s hair so irritating, until he realises exactly why.Set vaguely around the end of S4. No spoilers.





	Freak Flag High

 

There are many, many things about Harvey Bullock that still irritate Jim Gordon, and his hair is only the least offender.

Still, when Jim slinks into work, hungover and irritable, to be faced with Harvey in all of his rumpled glory, smugly holding out a takeaway coffee to him, something inside him snaps.

"For God’s sake, Harvey, tidy yourself up. Get a damn haircut: you look like you're about to do a bong hit." The guilt hits him instantly: the man's brought him caffeine for Pete’s sake, but then it evaporates just as quickly when Harvey does not look crushed or even offended, but breaks into his loud, rude laugh, his broad shoulders shaking so much that he has to set the polystyrene cup down on the desk beside him.

" _Do a bong hit_? What, of _wacky tobaccy_?"

He’s far too cheerful. Has no right to look so relaxed and affable and warm at this time of the morning, with his stupid smile and his stupid blue eyes and his stupid, stupid hair, and Jim just does not possess the patience for it today. “I don’t find it a laughing matter, detective.” He steadfastly ignores the quirk of Harvey’s _oooh, detective, is it?_ smirk, scrunching his brows into a serious frown with very little effort. “We’ve got a double homicide that might be linked to the threatening letters that were reported last week. Perhaps you should get onto that.”

“Sure thing, Captain.” Harvey tips him a little mock salute, still smiling his infuriating smile. “That’d be just _groovy_.”

 

If there’s one thing that can be said about Harvey Bullock, it’s that he doesn’t let a thing drop. Sure, he’s laid-back, he’s casual, he’s been known to ‘lose’ the odd stack of files here and there or ‘forget’ the occasional deadline. But when it comes to the really serious stuff, like his loyalty to the force, or his commitment to a practical joke, it’s like the man is on a mission from Satan himself.

Eventually, Jim is forced to privately concede that perhaps Harvey _had_ been getting regular haircuts after all, because he’s certainly stopped now. Over the months since their little exchange about Harvey’s personal grooming, Harvey has demonstrably not so much as glanced in passing at a pair of scissors. And maybe it’s something in Gotham’s water supply – a fact that Jim literally cannot entirely discount - because Harvey's hair grows, evidently, like weeds.

It’s like he’s doing it to spite him.

Jim _knows_ he’s doing it to spite him.

With every extra centimetre, Jim’s irritation, irrationally, increases. It’s not like there's a dress code for detectives, or even that Harvey’s hair is really all that unkempt. It’s the smiles he sends Jim’s way. Knowing, amused smiles, as Jim glares daggers enough that Harvey must surely feel the weight of Jim’s gaze across his back. Must see it when they cross paths in the locker room and Jim can’t help but stare, focused and riled, at the ends of hair flicking about Harvey’s shoulders as he buttons his shirt. Until Harvey notices and grins and says, “Hey, I'm gonna head out back and spark up a fat doobie, you dig, man?” and Jim feels his blood pressure rise, even as he can’t think of a comeback. Until Harvey’s chuckles are still ringing in his ears long after he’s left Jim sitting alone on the bench.

It shouldn’t get to him so much. He’s used to Harvey’s teasing: the guy does it to everyone at the precinct and everybody does it back; it’s practically what the department runs on. Jim runs his hands, frustrated, through his own immaculate crew cut and wonders what it would be like to run his hands through Harvey’s hair and the realisation strikes him like a cartoon anvil. Floors him. Leaves him gasping and in denial as he autopilots his way back to his apartment.

Once he thinks it, he can’t stop.

 _Fantasising_ : there’s no other word for it, although he’s still denying it strenuously even to himself, hours, days, weeks later. What would Harvey’s hair feel like, running through his fingers? Suddenly, the desk beneath Jim’s elbows, the pile of papers in front of him, melts away. Does he like it being touched? Played with? _Pulled_? Jim swallows, tightly. What noises would he make? Would his eyes slide shut in bliss, would his breath catch in his throat, would he _beg_? Jim helplessly catalogues the scenarios: Harvey’s head pillowed quietly on his lap while some inane TV show plays in the background and Jim runs his fingers gently through long, bright strands, untangling the length, massaging the stress of the day from his partner’s scalp. Maybe with a hairbrush, Harvey fresh out of the shower – God, Jim can feel his breath start to quicken again – just a towel around his waist, sitting on the edge of the bed as Jim runs a brush through his hair until it shines, leans down to breathe in the clean scent of him. Until Harvey drops down, onto his knees. All that long, thick hair twisted into a rope, wrapped around Jim’s fist as Jim directs him, manhandles him, Harvey’s mouth tight and wet around-

-Jim clears his throat and shifts guiltily in his seat, glancing around to make sure nobody is looking, feeling as if his thoughts are surely broadcasting on the station Tannoy for all to hear.

It’s bad enough on most days when he has to look at the limp, unwashed spill of it emerging from beneath Harvey's hat, lying over his cheap suit collar as he inhales dirty water dogs and trades poker tips with the lunch cart vendor. Soon enough, Jim becomes so familiar with it that he can recognise Harvey’s hair washing schedule. Every three or four days, he comes in with it freshly clean and shining, falling in soft waves over the shoulders of his battered leather coat, such an improbably rich shade of chestnut compared to the salt and pepper of his beard that Jim would swear he dyes it, if he wasn't a hundred percent convinced that Harvey is way too lazy to ever consider such a thing.

It pulls at him. Tugs at something buried deep inside.  
When he finds himself locking the door to Harvey’s bathroom, he knows he’s in way over his head, but he can’t help himself.

“OK, I got it. You ready?” He hears Harvey say. "Jim?"

“Just a moment.” Jim calls back, through the door. He works fast. Winces at every little noise as he scans the room quickly, pulling back the shower curtain and sliding the medicine cabinet’s mirrored door quietly open. He smiles. There’s a bottle of cheap, drugstore brand shampoo standing on the edge of the basin, but tucked behind a can of antiperspirant and an ancient tub of talc in the cabinet is a bottle of fancy-looking conditioner. Jim’s eyes slip closed as he twists the cap open and inhales. Doesn’t allow himself to think of what he’s doing; just loses himself in the fragrance of it, pretends he has his nose buried in the crook of Harvey’s neck instead.

“You fallen into the pan in there, buddy?”

“Be right out.” Jim places the bottle carefully back on the shelf, closes the cabinet door, memorising the brand. Flushes the toilet and emerges, smiling placidly. “I’d give that a minute or two if I were you,” he says, and feels warm with pleasure when Harvey laughs.

 

Knowing how Harvey's hair must smell doesn't help, either. 

Jim tries not to, but eventually he caves in and buys a bottle of the same conditioner he found in Harvey's bathroom and keeps it hidden in the back of his wardrobe, like an illicit stash of drugs.

In a way, it is. He tries not to, but he's fast beginning to think his will is quite weak indeed, as he kneels on the carpet with his nose against the bottle cap and inhales. Mango butter, apparently, whatever that is, sweet and rich, it has him hardening in his pants like a Pavlovian reflex, imagining the scent of his colleague's hair.

 

It was really only a matter of time.

Like all good junkies, Jim is never satisfied. Builds up a tolerance, until his jonesing for the real thing is almost unbearable. It starts to affect his work, his constant distraction on the job getting noticed and put down to stress and overwork.

It's only predictable that one day he snaps.

"Damn it, Bullock, I told you to do something about your hair."

And Harvey leans back leisurely in his chair, the ancient frame creaking with the redistribution of weight. Crosses his hands over his belly and Purses his lips, lifts his chin stubbornly and demands, "And what's wrong with my hair?"

It's the second day after wash day. Jim's gaze is magnetised to the shiny, red-brown lock that tumbles, as if on cue, back over one shoulder. And he can't take it anymore.

"Hey!" Jim can feel his pulse quicken at Harvey's surprised exclamation of protest, but it's too late. He's made his move now, grabbed an elastic band from Harvey's desk tidy, and is setting about finally getting his hands on him. _Go big, or go home, Gordon_. He bites his lip, rapidly realising that he's never actually tied anyone's hair back before, let alone a fidgeting, outraged cop. That he's so busy trying to simultaneously do this, and file away every detail, every texture, to memory, that he's making a complete hash of it.

"What are you, my nursemaid?" Harvey sounds more shocked than anything. "You gonna pin my mittens to my coat too, mom?" 

"It's unprofessional." Jim drops his hands and takes a shaky step back. Watches the way Harvey's hand sneaks up to tug at the absolutely-not-professional job that Jim has made of a pony-tail, lopsided and messy and too high. Harvey tugs at the elastic and frowns, and Jim's chest feels tight as he licks his lips and aims for righteous. "It's dangerous - it'd be too easy for an assailant to grab a handful."

"It's not an assailant who's grabbing a handful, Mr Feely."

 _Oh God, please don't blush._ The images push unbidden into Jim’s head: _grabbing_ , his hands buried in all that long, thick hair as Harvey straddles his lap, grinds down against him, hard and hot, mouth on his, and they're kissing, God, they're-

"Jim?"

"Yes!"

"Lookin' a little spaced out there, brother. You sure you're not the one gettin' high on the sly, now?"

"Quite sure." His response is clipped, cold, and God but he wants to be warm, but Harvey just snorts a quiet laugh.

"Just, next time you wanna braid my pigtails, Vidal Sassoon, can you go easy on the mail-room rubber bands? They pull somethin' painful. Really bad for your hair, y'know."

"There won't be a next time." Jim says, and for a second he means it. Judging by Harvey's raised eyebrows, he believes him, too.

 

The following day, Harvey saunters into the bullpen and Jim's stomach plummets. Then, he feels such a soaring sense of panic that he shuts his office door and spends a wretched moment just sitting, breathing, gathering his thoughts, before he peers out through the window to check.

Yeah. He wasn't imagining it. He's pushed too far. And then Harvey is knocking on the door, and Jim is inviting him in on autopilot and they're both acting as if nothing is out of the ordinary.

"I'd look into it myself, but it'll be good experience for her." Harvey is saying, for all the world like everything really is normal. "Thought I'd run it past the top dog, though. Jim?"

"Hmm?" Jim knows he's staring. 

"Earth to Gordon?"

"Your hair."

Harvey braces his hands on his hips and raises his chin. "You said to tidy it up." 

He did. Multiple times, for months. Now Jim stares at Harvey's silhouette, no waves cascading from beneath his hat and flicking about his shoulders; no hair visible at all. He feels sick. "I shouldn't have..." Jim begins. Falters.

Harvey narrows his eyes. "Shouldn't have _what_?" He leans forward in that way that Jim knows so well, that up-in-your-face way, and oh God, he deserves this. He stands to face the music.

"I shouldn't have rode your ass so hard over something so trivial." _Exemplary word choice, Gordon_. And it's anything _but_ trivial. Jim licks his lips. Feels his chest tighten. And Harvey is leaning very close, looking at him strangely.

"Why _did_ you?" He asks, and his voice sounds strange.

Jim doesn't answer. Perhaps he's too much about the unsolicited touching these days, but if he is, he's picked it up from Harvey. He has to see the damage for himself, face up to what he drove his best friend to do. But when he lifts Harvey's hat from his head, that pile of dark locks tumbles down from beneath it like something from a goddamn romance movie and Jim feels a lump form in his throat at the sheer relief that courses through him, so strong he feels dizzy. "You didn't." He manages.

When Harvey's hand falls, warm and heavy and familiar on his shoulder, Jim inclines his head to glance dumbly down at it. A shiver skates down the length of his spine when Harvey moves it to tilt his chin up with careful fingertips, so they're eye to eye once more.

"I’ve changed a lot since I met you, Jim. Knowing you has changed me. _You_ … you’ve changed me. I’m a better cop since I met you. A better man." He wets his lips, pensive. His ridiculous, glorious hair falling in front of his eyes as he leans closer masks his expression, but his voice is hoarse with emotion. "But I’m not changing who I am, how I look, for anything. The job, you, nothing. What you see is what you get. Take me or leave me."

"Then I guess I’ll have to take you."

It's exactly and nothing like Jim's obsessive fantasies. He's the one to close the gap between them, but then it's Harvey's hand sliding through Jim's cropped hair, Harvey's groan of relief sounding loud in his ears, Harvey's mouth desperate and hungry against his. Jim holds him. Makes an unconscious, urgent noise, presses them closer, full length, pulse kicking up at the feel of Harvey's dick pressed stiff against his. Thinks, even as he licks at Harvey's tongue, learning his rhythm, high on it already, that this has been a long time coming. The smell of Harvey's hair is so familiar now - strangely so - and yet utterly different, better, now it's the real thing, mingled with his vital scent: Jim breathes him in, soap and cologne and skin, the earthy undertone of his sweat. Buries his fingers in handfuls of satiny auburn and feels Harvey moan against his lips. When they come up for air, they're both panting. Clinging. And the look in Harvey's eyes tells Jim that he needn't worry that this is only a one time deal.

"The last thing I want is for you to change," he says. Hopes that the look in _his_ eyes is enough to tell Harvey that he's not just talking about appearances, either.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much if you read this piece of absolute self indulgence! I just had to get it out of my system! x


End file.
